I received the newly released "The Space Within US" (Blu-Ray) and got the change to watch it entirely. So this will be a short review of this release.

We recently got a Panasonic HD TV and watching HD over a period of time you get use to it and get spoiled. Even though the best satellite and cable can do it 780p it still is good quality TV viewing. However I have not viewed anything in Blu-Ray (1080p) and was looking forward to this. I used my kids Sony PS3 as the player as it has built-in Blu-Ray. The Space Within US was just phenomenal as we were just blown away of course with the quality of the video. All of the concert and interview extra footage was shot in HD and you really notice the difference when they switch to audience shots with either low light so it's grainy looking, or shot without HD camera.

It was also great to see the footage of the two families is intact in this release. As you may remember, we assisted in the production of this DVD which I won't get into now so this release was more personal. Was told they would correct the "Special Thanks To" credits, but the credits still have me listed as Mike Kovachia instead of Mike Kovacich. Oh well, at least I know it was me . I had a major computer crash and lost all the late 2005 emails where I corresponded with people so I hope somewhere I have a backup but as of now, I have no contact info for all those people. So if your reading and you know who you are, BUY THIS ! and drop me a line.

Back to the review. When this was first released as with everything Paul does, there was some criticism as to the amount of audience shots. It's been a while since I've last seen this and it really hit me again, from my personal interviews with Rusty and Brian and Bill Bernstein, this was a special tour that really bonded the whole crew. It wasn't just a PR thing. Watching this now, in HD, when concert footage is shown in such brilliance, it brought me back to the Toronto show where we got in for the sound check. This was before the started selling sound check VIP packages. It was a special time to see Mull of Kintyre. This video has some footage from that sound check. Friends To Go is one of favourite songs and seeing that again was fab.

We also attend both Vegas shows and were fortunate enough to get up close, 2nd row and 3rd row seats and this HD video simply refreshed my memory banks like it was yesterday. I used both 5. stereo and 5.1 surround sound and I did prefer surround as it encapsulates the essence of being there more than just stereo. My opinion of course.

It's available now on Amazon and $18.98 US is a good deal for this and surely worthwhile to replace the standard format previous version. Of course if you didn't get it first time around, it's a no brainer.

MACCA-CENTRAL FREE GIVEAWAY OF ONE BLU-RAY DVD - "The Space Within US"

I will be giving away one copy of the dvd to the winner of the contest I'm now setting up. The contest will be similar to recent ones run here at MACCA Central. The winner will be chosen from a list of people who have correctly answered the skill testing question. Please check later for the link in this article or one from the home page.

I know what you mean, would be nice to have two cuts of all the concert dvds. One with just the band, and the other with a mix or just audience shots. I'm sure the technology of the near future will allow several video channels for this purpose, then the use can select when and what position the 2nd, 3rd or 4th channel could be. Four channels would be great, 3 of the band, one of audience. The proposed channel allocation for Paul could be; 1: Paul all the time2: rest of band various angles3: reverse angle view4: various audience shots and audience perspective

Again, ideally we would have control of what channel is viewed in what size, on what part of the screen.

I guess it's easier to edit out flubs and other problems by cutting away to the crowd, fill in with a non flubbled section from another night recordings or what ever. And yes, I know all bands do this.